The Judge's Daughter (33 page)

‘Ah.’

Helen tried not to smile – the burglary had been a waste of time, energy and money, yet she considered her thousand pounds to have been well spent. She watched while he processed the
information, noticed that he did not flinch. ‘We have each met our Waterloo,’ she said sweetly, ‘though I hold the bigger guns. Get Denis back.’ After delivering the order
for a second time, she left the room.

Judge Zachary Spencer walked to the window and gazed out on the land between Skirlaugh Rise and Skirlaugh Fall. He had to go down there now and prostrate himself before his illegitimate daughter
and her husband. Unused to backing down, he watched Harry Timpson as he dragged a wash leather across the bonnet of the Bentley. Harry Timpson was a big man, but he was not suitable for manual work
and held no driving licence. ‘Bloody women,’ cursed the judge as he turned and poured himself a drink. Two daughters, he had now. And he was in thrall to both.

After a large brandy, he decided to get the visit over. It promised not to be easy, yet it had to be done, because Miss Helen Spencer had spoken.

It was love at not quite first sight. Mags, who had been visiting Agnes, had been brought up to Lambert House in order to see Helen and Louisa. Full of stories about her new
social life and about men who wanted to take her out and buy her gifts, Mags Bradshaw was rendered almost speechless by the sight of Harry Timpson. He was a seasoned if petty criminal; she was a
legal secretary, but she fell hard.

She had seen him before, of course. He belonged in Noble Street, had lived for years a few houses along from Agnes, but Cupid had never loaded his bow until now. Harry was handsome, quieter than
she remembered, polite to the point of shyness and she intended to ignore him.

Nevertheless, reasons for visiting Lambert House suddenly multiplied. She brought new-laid eggs to a village where they were always available, knew that she was carrying the proverbial coals to
Newcastle. She bought baby clothes, blankets, a shawl for Louisa’s expected baby. Sometimes, he wasn’t there. Helen, who had been watching the situation with a degree of glee, decided
to step in as ringmaster. She collared Harry one wet afternoon, brought him into the kitchen for a hot drink. Dripping wet, he huddled over the cup, steam rising from his person as he leaned
towards the fire. Kate was elsewhere in the house, so Helen embarked on her matchmaking. ‘Mags Bradshaw’s looking well,’ she began.

He nodded, causing a small shower of water to tumble from thick, dark locks. As ever, he hung on to every word uttered by his saviour and mentor. He adored Miss Spencer and it showed. ‘She
looks different,’ he replied eventually.

‘Pretty,’ said Helen.

‘Yes.’

‘And she likes you.’

‘Oh.’ He swallowed the rest of his tea. ‘I like her. She always stops and talks to me as if I’m an equal.’

‘You are an equal.’

Harry laughed. ‘What – me? The only qualification I’ve got is a life-saving certificate from the swimming baths. I had to sink to the bottom in my pyjamas, pick up a brick and
save it from drowning. Oh, and I won the flat race at school once. I could have won again, only Bernard Short cheated. He used to copy my sums as well.’

Helen smiled. ‘I notice that you’re good with figures.’

‘What? Oh, yes – I’ve always been like that, so Bernard Short got ten out of ten every time. Until the teacher moved him, then he fell flat on his face, but not flat in the
flat race.’

Helen stood up and poured more tea. ‘Then we’ll send you to night school at the technical college. You can become an accountant.’

‘But—’

‘Leave butting to goats. And ask Mags Bradshaw to go to the cinema with you.’

‘Eh?’

‘You heard me, Harry. Mags could get any man she wants, but she’s taken a liking to you. Look after her. She needs someone steady.’

He laughed joylessly. ‘Steady? Aye, steady as a broken rock before I stopped drinking. It was the drink that got me in hot water, you see. I was always drunk when I went on the
rob.’

‘I gave up drinking, too,’ she said. ‘Take her out.’

He whistled softly. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Have I ever lied to you?’

‘No. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me – apart from Mam. Mam was stuck with me, had to help me, but you chose.’

‘I had my reasons.’

‘I don’t care.’ He would have gone to the ends of the earth for Helen Spencer. ‘You got me one last chance and I won’t forget it. Mind you, I’m not so sure
about working for your dad – sorry.’

‘You’re working for me, Harry.’

‘OK.’

‘And you’re going to ask Mags out.’

Harry coughed. ‘I’d feel daft.’

Helen sighed. ‘You can’t get all the way through life without feeling daft. It’s daft to expect to get through without feeling daft.’

He understood her perfectly. He would always understand her perfectly.

By the time Judge Zachary Spencer arrived at the Makepeace cottage, its residents were already fully conversant with the plot. On the telephone, Helen had mithered, as had
Louisa, until Denis had finally agreed to give the old swine a hearing. As for the deeds to the house – he would accept those without a quibble. Agnes had never received anything from her
biological father – their child would get something, at least, in the form of a small, stone-built dwelling.

Agnes opened the door. She had not expected to feel embarrassed, yet she did. This was her dad. She didn’t like him and would probably never like him, but he was related to her.
‘Come in,’ she said softly. He did not look at her as he walked into the house.

Zachary Spencer had always been a good public speaker, which quality had taken him all the way to the top of the legal tree, but he had never been competent in a small setting. He needed to
preach, to be heard by as many as possible; he needed the right setting and a big audience – here, he had neither.

Denis stood in front of the fire, his stance reminiscent of Judge Spencer’s attitude on the day of reckoning in Morecambe, the day when Agnes and Denis had both injured him.
‘Well?’

‘The past,’ began the judge, ‘must be laid to rest. We have all been at fault. When the child is born, I shall set up a fund.’ He waited for thanks, but received
none.

Agnes was seated, hands folded in her lap. Her father, acutely aware that both his daughters were strong women, glanced sideways at her. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, his voice strained by
the necessary apology. ‘I was in the wrong.’

The Makepeaces nodded.

‘Denis, I want you to come back to the house as chauffeur and handyman. Harry Timpson is a good enough sort, but he doesn’t drive. He’s learning, but he hasn’t passed his
test yet.’

Prepared by the Spencer women, who had dripped on him like water on stone, Denis made his reply. ‘I have another job, sir, with a friend who is renovating a barn.’

‘Ah.’

‘I can’t just walk out on him. Will you take a seat?’

The judge sat. ‘There’s a lot of that going on these days,’ he offered in an effort to punctuate the weighty silence. ‘Barns and so forth being made into houses. Sensible
idea, I suppose. Though crops will always need storage . . .’ His voice died.

‘Yes.’

Two robins fought on a bush outside the front window. Robins, mused Agnes, were aggressive little buggers. Two angry robins outside, two inside. And who was she? Jenny Wren? Her supposed father
spoke not to her, but to the man of the house. She didn’t count, didn’t matter, was only a woman. ‘If my baby is female, will you still set up an account?’

At last, he looked at her. But his expression betrayed the impression that he had been interrupted from an unexpected source. ‘Of course I will.’

Agnes leaned her head to one side. ‘You know, Judge Spencer, you should have lived in Victorian times when women stayed at home and had vapours; when their dads could throw them out for no
reason. Or maybe you’d be best off in one of those Eastern countries where wives and daughters stay several paces behind the men. You’ve used and abused women all your life,
haven’t you? Oh, and I’d better remind you – we have the vote these days.’

He simmered, but dared not explode.

‘We sit on juries, some of us are doctors – even lawyers. Ah, but you know all about that, don’t you?’

‘Mrs Makepeace, I am here to make peace.’

Denis did not smile; neither did his wife. Their surname often brought forth puns and silly jokes.

‘I’ll do three days,’ said Denis, anxious for the meeting to close. ‘Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I’ll help George.’

‘George Henshaw?’ The older man’s face reddened. They were all in it together, of course.

‘Yes,’ replied Denis. ‘That’s the chap.’

The judge looked at his watch, remembered an appointment, made his excuses and left. Denis saw him off the premises, then dropped into a chair next to his wife. ‘Well, Helen’s
certainly got him sorted out,’ he observed. ‘I wonder what else is in that letter? Being your dad isn’t enough to reduce him to the state he’s in. There’s more,
isn’t there, love?’

There must be a lot more. Agnes wondered yet again about Judge Spencer’s past misdeeds, tried to imagine anything bad enough to make the stubborn old man submit. ‘It has to be either
rape, massive theft, or murder,’ she concluded out loud. ‘For him, rape would scarcely be enough. It has to be worse than rape.’ She shivered. The days were becoming shorter and
colder, although pregnancy was easier in weather like this.

‘Are you all right, love?’ he asked.

‘Something walked across my grave, Denis. It’s bad enough thinking he might have raped my mam – but murder?’

‘He didn’t murder her. She died in bed, didn’t she?’

Agnes nodded. He hadn’t murdered Eileen Grimshaw, but he had taken the life from her, had probably removed her will to live. ‘People kill people without actually murdering
them,’ she said softly. ‘If someone stamps hard enough on your soul, you can die many times over.’

‘Stop it, Agnes.’

‘I’ll be all right in a minute.’

Denis hoped so. For over twenty years, his wife had existed in the ‘father unknown’ category of life. That was difficult enough for anyone, but, for Agnes, the discovery of her
father’s identity had brought no relief. She was pregnant and tormented. She knew that the blood of Zachary Spencer ran through her own veins. She knew that her child would carry that same
blood, albeit to a more diluted degree. ‘Agnes?’

‘What?’

‘I have to go back to the house – you know that. They don’t feel safe. Even Helen can’t make them feel completely safe. Kate needs me there, too.’

‘I know. They explained it enough times.’

‘We have to get on with it.’

‘I know that as well. It’s just that . . .’ She couldn’t express how she felt, though a terrible feeling of dread had descended on her. Denis should not go back, yet he
must. Her reluctance was all a part of being pregnant, she supposed.

‘Just that what?’ he asked.

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It was nothing. Put the kettle on.’

The No Poultry Allowed party was the brainchild of Helen Spencer. ‘I don’t mean a political party,’ she said in response to her half-sister’s quizzical
expression. ‘Christmas evening. We’ll all have eaten turkey, chicken or goose at lunchtime, so I vote we have anything except poultry. My father will be at his club with all the other
lonely bachelors and widowers. So Louisa and I decided to have a bit of a gathering.’

They were with Louisa in Helen’s apartment. She was looking well, was eating everything in her path and was even managing the odd quip. ‘The rooster will be absent,’ she
remarked. ‘He can crow in Manchester where we can’t hear him.’

There had been little crowing from that source, thought Agnes as she accepted a cup of coffee. This was now Helen’s house, with Helen’s rules and Helen’s style. The main rooms
remained unaffected, but the flat used by her and Louisa was modern, all G-plan and teak, glass inserts in tables, rooms divided by open bookshelves, a light, airy feel to the place.

‘Mags is head over heels,’ Louisa remarked. ‘And that young man of hers is doing very well at the college – his tutor says he’s a natural accountant.’

Helen almost choked in her tea. ‘There’s nothing natural about accountants,’ she spluttered. ‘They’re like lawyers – focused to the point of obsession. But he
sailed through second year exams at the test, and he’s only been there three months.’ She was pleased with herself; she had found what her father might have begrudgingly termed a
primitive genius. ‘I’m glad for Mags,’ she added.

‘What about you, though?’ Louisa asked.

Helen looked at her young stepmother. ‘I have a different role to play. There can be no room for marriage in my life, Louisa. Like an accountant, I am completely focused.’

Sometimes, Helen frightened Agnes. A bright and amusing woman who had acquired her self-certainty almost at the cost of her sanity, Helen Spencer was an enigma. When she spoke of her father, her
eyes seemed to darken, while the corners of her mouth dipped, as if she tasted something unpalatable. The calm she displayed was a cloak. It hid a turmoil too deep to be allowed space at the
surface, yet it burned white-hot in her bones. To a mere onlooker, she was considerate, happy with immediate friends, capable of delivering a joke. Yet often, when companions spoke among
themselves, she retreated into her shell, brow furrowing as she visited her own centre.

‘Marriage is good,’ Louisa said. ‘I am so happy. Look at the daughter I acquired, look how she takes care of me.’

Agnes shook her head. Louisa wasn’t married at all. She saw her husband a few times a month and spent the rest of her time with Helen and Oscar, who had calmed slightly now that his second
lot of teeth had broken through. The new furniture had been bought only after his chewing phase had ended. He was a good dog. While the women talked, he lay at their feet, sometimes asleep, often
glancing from one to another as if trying to understand their conversations.

‘I have a list,’ Helen announced.

‘She likes lists,’ said Louisa. ‘Her whole life is planned in a locked drawer – isn’t it, Helen?’